“By personally lobbying against the Keystone pipeline, it means the president of the United States is lobbying for sending North American energy to China and lobbying against American jobs,” the Speaker told reporters Thursday.

ADVERTISEMENT

A White House aide confirmed that Obama has made calls to Democratic senators urging that they oppose the Keystone amendment, which is being offered on the Senate transportation bill.

Republicans have seized on the debate over the oil pipeline from Canada to hammer Obama on energy. They say construction of the pipeline will create up to 20,000 American jobs.

"The president believes that it is wrong to play politics with a pipeline project whose route has yet to be proposed," White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday when asked about Obama's phone calls. He noted that an alternative route for Keystone through an ecologically sensitive area of Nebraska has not yet been determined.

"Despite claims that this pipeline would somehow solve the pain at the pump today, the company has said it would take years before a single drop of oil would flow through the pipeline," Carney said.

Carney stressed that Obama's January decision to reject a key permit for the Keystone pipeline was not based on the merits, but instead on a GOP-backed, 60-day deadline included in a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut.

"The president obviously has communications with members of Congress with some regularity,” Carney said, calling GOP efforts to approve the pipeline “purely ideological and political.”

“We have made these points very clear. We will continue to make these points very clear and we certainly expect that Congress will, at least we hope, act in an appropriate fashion.”

Other Republicans also heaped criticism on the president’s calls to senators.